


living in the past

by Areiton



Series: Find Me In the World [12]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek is a Good Alpha, Getting Together, M/M, POV Outsider, Slow Burn, The Hale Pack - Freeform, pack bonds, worrying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 22:37:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13533975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: The thing is--Derek is private. Even in their pack that isn’t, he is intensely private and alone, content to keep his past and his scars to himself.





	living in the past

**Author's Note:**

> This is from Lily's POV. 
> 
> Reminder: Derek is the acting alpha for a pack of omega. He is does not have alpha powers.

She had an alpha, once. 

A pack, and a mate, and an alpha. 

She thinks of them, sometimes. Derek says it’s normal, that when you’ve lost as much as they have, it’s ok to think about them, as long as you aren’t living in the past. 

She was, when she first ran through his woods, terrified and alone and feral. 

Derek found her, and brought her back to his little log cabin in the woods, and he coaxed her humanity back to the surface, something she hadn’t thought could be done and wasn’t sure she wanted done. 

Derek made her live, in the moment. 

More than that--he made her  _ want _ to live in the moment. 

She was his first omega and the night the moon hung full and bright over them and she bared her throat and called him her alpha--Derek had stared at her in shock and something like fear and ran from her. 

Lily didn’t mind, though. Derek had taught her to live again, taught her what it was, to be a pack, and she was willing to chase him to keep that. 

Derek saved her, something she was almost painfully aware of. 

It took a long time--years--to realize, they saved each other. 

That Derek rescued her from being alone, but she did the same thing, that as much as he sometimes seemed surly and distant, Derek  _ craved _ companionship. 

She forgets, sometimes. They’ve been together, her and Eric and Derek and Saul, for so long that the time before she became part of this strange, disjointed pack feels like it belongs to someone else. 

She wakes up and can’t remember a time when she wasn’t this werewolf’s beta in every way that matters. 

She forgets that Derek is like her, like them all--that he had a place, a pack, before her. 

The thing is--Derek is private. Even in their pack that isn’t, he is intensely private and alone, content to keep his past and his scars to himself. 

Saul knew who he was, knew what had happened to the Hale pack all those years ago, and how a new, younger Hale pack rose in California and took apart the Alpha Pack with a True Alpha’s help.

There were whispers about the Hale alpha sacrificing his spark to save one of his pack members. 

There were more whispers, about him killing them. 

But Derek didn’t talk about it. 

He didn’t talk about his family, or his past, or the pack he changed, or the reasons his eyes were blue. 

He didn’t talk about the fact that he was the alpha of this pack they’d formed, but that he  _ wasn’t _ an alpha. 

He didn’t talk about the people he left behind. 

Sometimes, she sat in his workshop, while he sawed and carved and shaped, and she thought she could see, hidden in the sawdust and stubble, the man he would have been, if life hadn’t happened. 

The man he was starting to become, despite life happening. 

She loves that man, with the ferocity and devotion of a sister, loved him so much her heart ached with it and she whispered it into Eric’s chest, as he held her, a solid truth she believed---they had the best alpha in the world. 

When he came home, silent and withdrawn and they summoned Braeden to pull him back to them--she worried. 

But then he went into his shop and when he emerged with a tiny wooden puzzle box, he seemed lighter. Anxious, but less weighted. 

She’s heard him talking to Braeden, about someone named Stiles, and she didn’t dig. She refused to dig, even though curiosity ate at her. 

Lily watches Derek, as they drive back to Maine, his eyes bright and focused on the road, and she hopes that whoever Stiles is, whatever they decide to do with Derek’s heart--she hopes they don’t hurt him. 

He’s been hurt so much already. 

“Don’t worry,” he says, gently, picking up on her distress and she makes a low, anxious noise. 

He reaches for her then, a quick firm squeeze at the back of her neck that grounds and reassures her as he marks her with his scent. “I just want you to be ok, Derek,” she says, quietly. 

He glances at her, startled, and his eyes go warm. “Stiles said that to me, once. Right after I left Beacon Hills. Sent me a text saying he hoped I was ok.” He goes quiet, and then, “It’s the last thing he ever said to me.” 

She waits, still and quiet and hopeful that her distant alpha will trust her, that he will let her share this piece of him. Derek smiles, then, a quick flash of teeth. “I promise, Lily. Whatever happens, I’ll be ok.” 

And because she always has, she believes him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hesitated a lot with this one. But this series is so much about Derek and Stiles being in a good place, mentally, that I felt like we needed to see him from one of his pack's POV.   
> We're back to Derek and Stiles' POV after this. <3


End file.
